I’ve already talked about culling games, and it is something that I do fairly often, I should look to play more new ones again and do another cull soon. But this article is about how you can maximize the amount of games that you can have in a space.

Step 1: Combine

Now, don’t worry, I am not talking about combining a game like Five Tribes into the Ticket to Ride box and having both in the same box. I don’t like that. But I like to look at a game and go, can I fit the expansion into here. Is there some way that I can make it work. Some games it works well for, Marvel United for example, others, you can free up a little space, like with Root. But how can I free up that space by putting an expansion into the base box.

Step 2: Throw Out Inserts

This ties directly into the first one, but throw out inserts, and this is really for games with expansions. There is an exception to this rule. If the insert makes the game easier to get to the table, keep the insert. For example, if Stars of Akarios comes out with an expansion, I am not going to get rid of the insert in the base game to get it all into one box. Why, the insert makes the game easier to table. But on the flip side, Reichbusters had a big insert to house one giant mini. I don’t need that, so let me remove that and get my four boxes, and four big boxes, down to three.

Step 3: Organize

Then organize your space, and think about how you want to organize. Because of my streaming, I want some of the bigger titles behind me. But you can also do it by size of the games, types of games whatever it might be. I have three cubbies that are full of roll and write games for example, just not on the side on camera. But organizing helps you gain space in two ways. You can optimize how you place your games and you might find a few to cull.

Step 4: Organize Less

Now, this flies in the face of Step 3. But organize less. We are talking about fitting a lot of games in. Some games just won’t fit in a good spot. I have Hadrian’s Wall down below, why, because I am out of room. I really should play a couple of roll and writes and decide if I can get rid of a few. But if I tried to cram them all into one spot or keep them sorted too neatly, I’d have four semi-full cubbies for of roll and writes. Instead I have three jam packed ones and one that is in another spot.

Final Thoughts

Now, this might not be easy for you to do. I know of gamers who really want their games to be like they were when they got them. Keep them as new looking as possible, keep the expansion boxes if possible and some of that is because they might want to sell them again later.

So, it is something that is personal to the person doing it. It might be easier for you to sell games than to condense a base game and an expansion into a box. Or easier to sell a game than have a roll and write not with the other roll and writes. It depends on you, but if you want to get more games, the tips above or steps above will create more room.

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So You Want To Sell Your Board Games?

I don’t have hard and fast rules for this, just some suggestions, because really that is more useful than any sort of rules. Your situation for selling games is going to be very different than mine is. I live in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, a large metro area. What is near me might be hours away for you, but hopefully there is some useful in this.

But where do you start?

You start at your shelves. Look what is on there that you haven’t played in a long time. This drops into the side of culling games from your collection. I just want to say that is where you start and now that you’ve started pulling games off your shelf to sell, you are ready to go.

Next I want to ask:

– Are there Game Stores in your area that buy used?
– Are there used book stores in your area that buy games?
– Do you want to use Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist?
– Do you want to have a garage sale?
– Are you willing to ship games?

Local Game Store

These are all starting points for where you can sell. For me, I do a mix of most of those, or at least the first two. Most of my games, I sell to my LGS (Local Game Store) for store credit which I immediately use to buy some more games. Now, that doesn’t free up too much space on my shelf, but often a little bit of space. But I also know that an LGS buying games is not that common.

The amount of work that goes into buying a game is pretty high, so if there is one in your area, I suggest supporting them. But understand, with the work they do with piece counting, it might not be the best price option out there for you.

Book Store

If you just want to move them quickly, book stores are often a great spot. Where I’m at Half-Priced Books will buy a lot of different board games and sell them. The downside to selling here is that they are even less likely to give you market value.

Book stores aren’t always where people would look for a game, and they want to do volume of sales because, well, people sell books more often than board games. So their model is built on getting in and getting out books fast and having that inventory that turns over quickly. While that is what most businesses want in general, it does mean if people aren’t coming specifically for board games, they will value them less.

Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist

If you want to get the best money this is likely going to be your best bet. Though, I am talking about this as local pick-up right now. You can certainly ship with both of them. The big thing with both of these is the amount of leg work that there is. You need, especially for Facebook Marketplace to take pictures, write up a description and figure out what you want to price it at.

And figuring out what to price it at can be tricky. The best bet is to go on eBay and look to see what other people have asked for them. But not even that, there are listings where people want to a ton that just won’t sell. Battlestar Galactica is an expensive game but if you want $200 for the base set, it won’t sell. Instead look at the recently sold items to get your pricing.

All of this should seem like a lot of work, and it is, but it is also the spot where you will make most of your money. And in fact, the next two options will likely be as much work probably without the payoff. So let’s move onto them.

Garage Sale

If you have enough, just create your own sale. A garage sale with a lot of games, advertised on some board game selling groups in Facebook or posted about anyways, is another way. Even Board Game Geek threads for the area that you live in are a great spot to post.

Now, this might seem like it’ll be as effective the issue is that you need to be able to target your buyers. Will the person who is looking that specific game show up? A garage sale is going to target the gamers who are either looking for a deal or just there to browse to see if you happen to have something that they want. But it is a solid way to get rid of games, especially if you can share enough to target buyers and get the hobby gamers to show up.

Ship Away

Now, finally you can sell games anywhere if you are willing to ship them. This is very much like that Facebook and Craigslist part that I wrote, except now you have added in more work for yourself. You need to figure out shipping.

Now, this doesn’t have to be too bad. A fair number of games, especially smaller will fit in more standard sized boxes and therefore be more of a consistent shipping price. That is not going to be the case for a lot of games, though. A lot of games are going to cost a fair amount to ship.

Another thing to note is that buyers now need to factor two numbers, game price and shipping price into their purchase. While this is what you do on eBay or the likes as well, it does determine some for a buyer. If you offer a $45 game at $25 with $15 shipping is that worth the $5 difference for someone buying it new. It depends on what you can find for shipping but it might mean that game prices have to be cheaper or shipping might need to get added into the game cost.

So Which Is Best?

Honestly none of them are the best or worst options. If you need to sell stuff fast and don’t care as much about maximizing your money, a LGS or Book Store are great. However, that is less money overall. If you want to make the most money, you are doing this to make room, then list them yourself. Especially if you don’t care if it takes two weeks or a month to sell them all.

For me, I generally sell to my LGS. It is the easiest for me, but I am going to be doing a Minnesota Tabletop Market in a week. This is basically the Garage Sale idea, but instead of me having to put the work into advertising what it has. Now, that means I don’t know what it has, what the prices are. But it gets people through the door, not me, which is nice.

This is something available to me because I am in a city and someone else wanted to put on the work. For you, if you want to try or find that. But, most likely it’d be you running it. Which I think for some people, that’d be fun, but it is also a lot of work. It’s important to think what will work best for you in your area.

Other Resources

Now, I am not an expert on this. If you are interested in more on selling games and shipping, I recommend you checkout BoardGameCo on YouTube. Also BoardGameCo the company buys games used to sell again. So if you don’t have an LGS in your area, that is another option.

Also, if you go to conventions, head to BGG (Board Game Geek). Often times trades or sales can be arranged with other attendees with a bit work. But, it would give you a bigger audience without needing to ship games.

How have you found to sell board games?

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Today, though, I want to take a different tact. There is a lot about why you should get rid of games. But not all games fall into the category of play it, then get rid of it. Or why did you buy it in the first place, you already have 20 campaign games, you don’t need all of Kingdom Death Monster. I believe games can fall into three different categories in your collection. The games that you need to keep, the games you want to keep, and the games you should probably get rid of.

The Board Games You Need To Keep

Now, I use the word need here. There are no board games that you truly need. Board games are a hobby, and no hobby is a need. That said, there are some games that you will want to keep no matter what. These games fall into a few different categories or reasons why you keep them.

Firstly, you play the game often. So board games that you play a lot, you can most definitely keep those. You need them because you play them. That one is simple enough to grasp.

Next, you might keep a game because it’s a grail game. But even this is not a great reason to keep a game. If you aren’t playing a grail game, why do you need it on your shelf? Sometimes, though, a game is just so hard to come by that it won’t be worth the hassle of getting it back. Especially if it’s a game that you found before it was hard to get or just stumbled across. Also, if the grail game still brings you joy.

For example, I’ll remember stumbling across Tannhauser at a used book store, or getting the minis for Dice Throne Adventures off of Facebook Marketplace, as how I got the game. So there is joy of the hunt for those games. And having that on your shelf and reminding you might be enough.

That brings us to the final reason you might need a game, it brings you joy. This is a game that you look at, possibly a grain game, and you see it and it just makes you happy. You don’t feel regret that you aren’t playing it, you are just happy you own the game.

The Board Games You Want To Keep

Now, the final reason of need is also the main reason that you might want to keep a board game. The game brings you joy. But these are the games that bring you less joy than other games. An example for myself, owning Xenoshyft: Onslaught, and Dreadmire brings me joy. I don’t really need two things that are basically the same game. I should play both and pick my favorite.

So it is more of a want to keep both? They bring me joy. Another way to put it is that while you might have a lot of the type of game you love. I own a lot of deck builders and a lot of stuff for a lot of deck builders. Do I need Xenoshyft, Aeon’s End, Ascension, Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle and more in my collection? No, I don’t play all of them all the time. But deck building brings me joy.

This can also be the games that you maybe don’t love, but you play. Another example from my collection would be Splendor. I think it’s an okay game that I’d play but never seek out to play. I feel like I’ve played it and I don’t need to again. But, my wife likes the game, and she can pull that one off the shelf and teach and play it. That is a game I want to keep because other people like it and want to play it. This really works for games that people ask to play.

One important thing though is that games you want to keep shouldn’t be games that weigh you down. Some games when they are on the shelf, you look at them and you feel bad that you aren’t playing them. Those games fall into the third category.

The Board Games You Should Get Rid Of

This is the hardest category, there are reasons to think you shouldn’t get rid of any game. What if someone wants to play that one game that has been collecting dust for years. You got a good deal on a game, so it’d likely cost more to get it back. Or it’s out of print, so it’ll be more difficult to track down later.

Before we pick apart some reasons to keep, let’s talk about some reasons to get rid of a game. The most obvious one is that you don’t play it. If you don’t play it, why do you keep it? Does it bring you joy? Okay, but does it bring you enough joy to eat up a spot on your shelf? Is it in a genre that you just adore, well, maybe keep it. But sometimes it’s better to know your putting a game into the hands of someone who will play it.

Honestly, that is the reason that you get rid of a game, you don’t play it. But to add another twist on that, it weighs you down. That’s the idea that you look at the game and you feel bad that you aren’t playing it. And it feels like it’s too much work to learn the rules and play it, but you feel bad you aren’t. Get rid of games like that. They are a mini black hole on your shelf and soon they’ll start sucking the joy out of other games around them, because you always see that one game.

But now let’s tackle some of the excuses that you might be using to keep games around.

What If Someone Wants To Play The Game?

This one is simple, they can buy it. Or we can make it slightly less simple, they can let you know they want to play it and you can buy it. This is something I want to work on this year, the idea of getting a game just in time. Some games I want to keep on my shelf because they get played, but if a new game comes out, let’s say So Clover as a party game example, I can buy that right before a game night. I don’t need to buy it two months or two years before I’ll play it.

It Was Such A Good Deal Though

So, what does that matter if you don’t play the game. Buying a game because it “was a good deal” still uses money that you could be spending on other things. Even non-board game related things. And if you sell the game now, or trade it, you’ll get money to buy a board game or part of a board game that you’ll actually play. Or something else that you actually need. If or when you want to play the game again, you can buy it again, probably on sale again.

It’s Out Of Print, It’ll Be Hard To Find Later

It might be hard, but it won’t be impossible. And if you are savvy with selling it, you will break even when you want to get it back. And this is still a game that you’re not playing. It might even be a game that you don’t like that well. So why would you want it to eat up some space on your shelf. Like the game that was such a good deal, this is money that is just sitting there. But in this case, it is more money that could be going into a game that you will play.

This is one that i really do see so often, it’s the idea that people don’t love a game, but it’s hard to find. That is a bad reason for it to be in your collection. Just because it is rare isn’t going to make you like it more. Let someone else who is having trouble finding a game that they like and want to play, get the game. Sell your copy, and then get a game you will play.

It’s My Favorite Type Of Game

But does it bring you joy? Or does it weigh you down? If it isn’t bringing you joy, that doesn’t matter that it’s your favorite mechanic. I don’t own Dominion even though I love deck building games. Now, in all fairness, I don’t like Dominion as a deck building game, it is a game that kind of plays itself for me. I do not need it in my collection because I won’t play it. The other ones I do pull off the shelf from time to time all of them.

Let’s Run Through Some Examples In My Collection

So, like that whole long title says, I want to use some games in my collection as an examples of different things.

Gloomhaven

When was the last time I actually played Gloomhaven? Well not this year, and not in months. I have beat the campaign and I don’t intend to go back and play it again anytime soon.

But it isn’t going to be leaving my collection. This is a game that I absolutely love. Even if I never come back to it again. I like having it on my shelf to think about all the great fun I had playing it. This is a game that brings me so much joy. Plus it’s marked up and has stickers, so while I’m sure someone would like a cheaper used copy, the return isn’t worth losing that spot of joy on my shelf.

Xenoshyft: Onslaught

This is a simple one, I play the game often. Now, what determines often might be different for different people. I think I played it 3-4 times last year, and when I played 70+ different games and 100+ were Orchard, that is pretty often.

The Blood Inn

Now this one is trickier. I haven’t played the game yet. Technically it is part of my goal to get down to under 100 games in my collection that I haven’t played. And I do want to play it, the theme is fun and I think I’d enjoy the game. I just need to play it and see if it is a game that I like.

Marrying Mr Darcy

This is kind of my stand-in for Splendor. This is a game that my wife backed on Kickstarter and I do like playing it. It isn’t that far off of my top 100. But it is a game she can easily pull off the shelf and teach and play with people. And that happens fairly often. So that one won’t leave the collection for that reason.

Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate

Finally we have Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate, and this one I think is actually going to leave my collection. You know I love Betrayal at House on the Hill. And Betrayal at Baldur’s Date is the same thing, just the fantasy version of that, the D&D version. And I love D&D. But if I were to pick one of the two games, Betrayal at House on the Hill will get played every time before Baldur’s Gate. And I have Betrayal Legacy that I need to play as well. So there are two games ahead of Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate.

But does it give me joy? Meh, I don’t feel like it’s a weight, but it also doesn’t make me smile every time I see it. It is just more of a game and game system I know I love in a package I like slightly less than the original version. And it’s a game that if I want to get it back, I can.

Final Thoughts

So we actually found a game during this that can leave my collection. Some people say that as you start culling it can be addicting. It feels like a weight leaving your shoulders because you don’t need to worry about playing that game. I can see that to some extent, but that’s not why I cull. And I think, to start, it doesn’t feel like that. It feels bad that you are selling a game that you didn’t play as much as you wanted to.

I cull games and sell games for a few reasons. When I sell a game it means that someone else can enjoy that game. If I’m not playing it, now someone who really wants it can play it. I’m passing on the joy of board gaming to someone else. Plus I get money or store credit, and now I can get a game I want to play even more.

And I really mainly do it for that last reason. I want to find a game that works better for me. If a game doesn’t get played or is just fine for me, why keep it in the collection. Instead, let someone else play it and quest for that next game that is great for me.

Do you find it hard to get rid of games? And do you have games that you love but you know you won’t play, but they still stay anyways? Let me know what those games are in the comments below.

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